Those of you who have followed my blog for a while know this campaign has Ipreviously covered it. It has been around for over 2 years. Nissan has done a great job with the email marketing efforts for the campaign where they are constantly giving away free sports related equipment to contest entrants. Regular email communications are sent as new content is added and contest prizes are released.

Basically, the program is a lifestyle marketing effort linking the passions of running, cycling, and yoga featuring three key personalities: Lance Armstrong, Ryan Hall, and Tara Stiles. The experience includes several videos showcasing different exercise and training tips while also promoting Nissan vehicles, the Nissan Altima was the lead vehicle for two years but now it’s been replaced by the Nissan LEAF.

This year Nissan shifted (pun intended) theirmicro-site to Facebookwhere all of the prior website’s content went into various Facebook tabs. This worked pretty well for the athlete content as each person has their own tab and video views seem decent; though, it’s tough to truly gauge as I’m not sure how much advertising was done to drive people to the Facebook page. Also, is some video views were probably done through YouTube and Google search, not all entirely through the Facebook experience.

One wonders though if the move to a Facebook fan page is a better, more effective, decision than keeping the micro-site.The most significant issue I can see from the Nissan Master the Shift change is how buried the vehicle content is now. One can only get to the vehicle information using the Favorite Pages section of the Facebook fan page. The vehicle content really gets lost in the new experience, but this may be a result of the campaign’s goals having to do more with contest entries (the entry form is the first thing that shows up when one clicks an ad) and driving people to the unique content created for each of the athletes tend to be more primary objectives.

Another concern with moving to Facebook is that the user now has several interruptions that never existed with a micro-site. For instance, if a friend on Facebook initiates a chat, Nissan could lose that person’s attention. Also, any status update or new message information while on Facebook could further distract the visitor. There is of course just the fact that one is on Facebook and may simply and easily return to their Facebook news feed. The usability, call-to-action person in me questions how so many other clicks can interrupt the experience and thus lose the person Nissan is trying to reach.

The whole change from micro-site to Facebook fan page is an experiment. I would love to see how well the change is for Nissan, but without any primary data analytics it’s difficult to assess the strategic decision, but it’s an easy realization for the Nissan team as they can see if their content is getting a higher engagement rate by moving to Facebook.

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Ralph wrote: "A day does not go by when I do not ponder who or what will eventually unseat Facebook, in a similar manner to Facebook unseating MySpace... There seems to be a natural cycle to the rise and fall in popularity of social networks"

I too am keeping an eye on the horizon, awaiting the arrival of the new heroes of Social Media who'll make Facebook 'old skool', or as I heard say by one teen referring to MySpace, "Sooooo YESTERDAY!"

Facebook is another great lead source generator... not the lead source generator... analytics will tell you exactly what is working and when. No need to cut off productive digital resources like microsites. (I do not think most dealers are capitalizing on the vast potential of facebook or microsites yet... looking forward to the "great awakening"). Good Selling, DTG

Larry - I could not agree with you more... Especially the point about distractions. In regards to analytics on FB Fan Pages, for awhile my team was able to use FBML pages to install Google Analytics tracking codes... But Facebook has killed that loophole as well. And, in my opinion you have to be suspicious of any site hosting or Fan Page hosting service that does not allow analytics tracking tags.

To make the blanket statement that facebook fanpages will kill microsites, is the same as saying that google real time search will kill SEO...rediculous.

Are Fan Pages better than a microsite in some instances? Yes. Those instances are very narrow and surround a lifestyle play not a campaign.

A microsites main function is to focus traffic and convert, and to do so in the double digit range. To do that you have to have 3 functions.

1. NO DISTRACTION, facebook is full of distraction...hell the whole site is a distraction. Like Brian I would love for my competitors to replace their microsites with a facebook fan page... You realize I can target people with facebook ppc that are fans of your page, AWSOME get all your traffic in one area where I can get to them!

2. Clean Analytics - without clean analytics you cannot hope to try to understand what traffic converts and why, facebook is just another random access website.

3. MOST IMPORTANT you cannot hope to convert in the double digit range without testing and you can't test a facebook fan page.

So by all means PLEASE go to fan pages. Yes Brian indeed that would be a dream come true.

Andrew - You bring up an great advantage to using Facebook Fan Pages as a supplement to whatever microsite program a dealer has going... But the advantage goes beyond simple notifications of content being updated. There is the feature that allows the Facebook Page Admins to construct a message and then send that message as an update. The messages can contain links to anything the dealer wants to send as enticement for the "Fan" to take an action. We have found these message updates to be quite effective in driving lead form submissions for "Buy Back" campaigns, Event Marketing, Service Specials and Coupon Offers. Our FB Pages state that these offers are why local automotive consumers should "Like" us, so they are not unexpected... Best of all, there are no Spam Filters or Junk Mail folder to trap our messages and prevent them from ever being seen by the customer, which is what happens more than 40% of the time with emails.

We also use Facebook paid advertising campaigns to drive traffic to the dealer's special offers, which requires consumers to "Like" the Dealer's FB Page set up specifically for that purpose, in order to qualify for the offer. The paid ads work exceptionally well because they are purchased on a PPC basis and the ads state exactly what the consumer is being offered. In most cases, only the consumers interested in the dealer's offer click on the ads... And, they cost about half of what Google Search Ads cost on a Cost Per Click basis, and we have far better targeting within Facebook due to the consumer's profile data which advertisers are allowed to use for targeting their FB advertising. Both of the Facebook images below are linked to the relevant information section inside Facebook:

While I don't advocate throwing away any marketing technique that works, I can see one benefit straight away.
Notification: As we all know every time we make an update to our page everyone that is a friend or a follower gets instant notification. I realize that there are more distractions on Facebook, however with the amount of time people spend on Facebook the chances of them viewing your content is that much more than if you are hoping them to read an email.
For example I don't spend as much time on Facebook as I should (Don't tell anyone) but I do get Mr. Pasch's emails about updates. I read the titles of the posts and read most of them, when I have time. The key is that it's never when I get the email.
The key factor, is as I see it, that if you want someone to see your message place it where they can see it and you can notifiy them easiest.
But for god's sakes don't give up the microsites.

Brian - I know exactly what you mean! A day does not go by when I do not ponder who or what will eventually unseat Facebook, in a similar manner to Facebook unseating MySpace... There seems to be a natural cycle to the rise and fall in popularity of social networks, we shall see if Facebook will make all other websites obsolete... But, I won't bet on it happening!

However, Facebook is an abject lesson in the benefits of releasing your code to developers so they can write programs that work with your platform.

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